NSW Energy Minister Matt Kean has responded callously to the resignation of Liberal Party colleague Craig Kelly telling him “good riddance”. Mr Kelly is the latest of a string of conservatives who have departed an increasingly radicalised Liberal Party.
PILATE’S contemptuous dismissal of truth echoes down the ages. Those who, like Pilate, wash their hands while authoritarians try to gag anyone they insist must not speak, ignore what distinguishes civilisation from the evil alternatives. The search for truth is dependent on freedom of speech. As Robert Menzies warned: “Today’s truth is frequently tomorrow’s error…. If truth is to emerge and in the long run be triumphant, the process of free debate – the untrammelled clash of opinion – must go on”.
LIBERAL backbencher Craig Kelly has endured heavy backlash from political opponents for his wary stance of the government’s immediate COVID-19 vaccination plans and his sharing information on potential vaccine supplements. The outspoken Liberal member of parliament for Hughes said he is not an anti-vaxxer but he prefers a “wait to see” approach to learn from other vaccination trials before throwing his support behind the government’s move to vaccinate as many Australians as possible.
THE politician who has overseen more death and economic destruction than perhaps any premier in history has claimed to have the nation’s highest standards. With 820 COVID-related Victorian deaths – compared to 89 for the rest of Australia – and his State this week returning to total lockdown for a third stint, Victorian premier Daniel Andrews has reached new levels of political spin.
QUEENSLAND premier Annastacia Palaszczuk played the first notes from the State sovereignty provisions of the Constitution as a rousing electoral anthem, after renaming them “Up Yours Australia, Queensland is Closing Its Borders”.
I RECENTLY read a useful poster for employees of Australia’s Workplace Mental Health Institute which describes 15 signs that you may be in an abusive relationship.
STATE politicians have continued their hysterical response to Coronavirus – instead of easing their approach as the germ became better understood. Rather than “flatten the curve” and “protect the vulnerable”, as was their initial intent, elected officials have instead acquiesced as public sector bureaucrats flattened the economy and protected their own careers.
WHY do politicians so often make decisions based not on judgement but on computer modelling? This is notwithstanding the telling observation attributed to the great Anglo-American statistician, Professor George EP Box, “All models are wrong, but some are useful.” It’s like all those pundits and commentators who were sure that based on faulty polls, Bill Shorten would win the last Federal election.
FOR the first time since self-government was granted by the British in the nineteenth century, Australia has become a series of rolling tin-pot dictatorships. What was truly appalling this year was that not one of the checks and balances we rely on to protect us from any rampant Mussolini class actually worked.
CLEMENTINE FORD is an Australian feminist.
Ford spent much of her childhood growing up in the Middle East, specifically in Oman on the eastern border of the United Arab Emirates.
